Resistance in the doabs
The Khokhars held the broken country between the Jhelum and the Chenab and the Salt Range beyond it — terrain that favoured raiders and made systematic conquest expensive. They rose against Ghurid authority in 1205, were defeated, and in 1206 Muhammad of Ghor was killed at Damyak on the Jhelum while returning from the campaign. The Persian chronicles attribute the killing to Khokhars, though some accounts name Ismaili assassins instead.
The death was consequential: Muhammad left no son, his Indian territories passed to his slave commander Qutb al-Din Aibak, and the Delhi Sultanate was founded.
Jasrath
The Khokhars remained a problem for Delhi. Jasrath Khokhar, in the early fifteenth century, took advantage of the Sultanate's collapse after Timur's invasion to make himself the dominant power in the Punjab, defeating and capturing the ruler of Kashmir, besieging Delhi's governors and holding Lahore for periods.
Khokhar power ended with the rise of the Lodis. The community remained substantial in the Punjab, and its progressive conversion to Islam over these centuries is one of the better-documented instances of a process that is usually invisible in the sources.
Further reading
- Asher, Catherine B. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2006
- Jackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press, 1999
- Richards, John F. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1993
- Basham, A. L. The Wonder That Was India. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1954
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.